Deutsche defends synthetic ETFs in latest product launch

Deutsche Bank has launched four new exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on the Singapore Stock Exchange, including the first to be linked to Pakistan and Bangladesh. The MSCI Pakistan Investable Market Index and the MSCI Bangladesh Investable Market Index track the performance of their underlying indices via swaps in what is known as synthetic replication. This is common to all ETFs offered by db x-trackers, the German bank’s ETF unit. It means db x-trackers buys swaps from Deutsche Ba…